


a thousand funerals

by headbuttingbears



Category: Broadway RPF
Genre: Adultery, Anal Fingering, Come Eating, Dirty Talk, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Melodrama, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Rough Sex, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:00:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headbuttingbears/pseuds/headbuttingbears
Summary: Home late, Ramin's taking me out for a post-show drink,he'd texted Rosalie.Knowing you two it's more like "home tomorrow",she'd replied. | Ramin's in town unexpectedly and there's something urgent he'd like to discuss.
Relationships: Hadley Fraser/Ramin Karimloo
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	a thousand funerals

**Author's Note:**

> References both of their marriages/families because I lack moral fibre, but I also did basically no research and just pumped Jenny for the odd bit of info for ~flavour text~. This is set during no particular time. I guess like... in the last 2-3 years? Time is meaningless. It's pandemic season, kids, we're all coping in different ways. In case anyone cares: no, I have not had this Brit-picked; yes, I am relying on being Canadian to get me through the spelling. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Title from an untitled Heidi Priebe prose poem.
> 
> Once again, for the first time in yonks but undoubtedly not the last: for Jenny, who so loudly kept getting all [Captain Janeway voice] "DELETE THE WIFE" about things and whose fault this absolutely is. You POISONED me!!!!!!!!! <3

> To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.
> 
> \- Heidi Priebe

The whole stage door thing was still so weird even years after it stopped being an accidental thing for Hadley, after people stopped getting his autograph incidentally because he'd been dragged along by the real stars and it would've been too rude to ignore him. After they started asking for it on purpose. Deliberately. People from the audience who sought him out specifically. People who were in the audience _because_ of him specifically. It was just—

He was tired, he was still dripping from the shower, and he needed something to eat, but everyone was so nice, enthusiastic, and he was chatting off to the side of the door with a lovely young girl who had a lot of interesting thoughts on how Iago's actions tied into society's historical perspective on something or other when he shivered, scratching his bare arm just below his t-shirt sleeve, and glanced down the alley to see Ramin slouching against the chipped brick wall.

Every detail of the conversation he was presently having evaporated from his brain like—like a thing that evaporated extremely quickly. Steam or whatever. It had been a long day, a long run, and his brain was mush. Metaphor was for other people. "I—I'm sorry, I have to go," he managed, and hopefully said other nicer things, and he could see Ramin grinning at him and shaking his head as he hugged the girl, who hopefully didn't mind that he was a soggy mess.

"What on earth are you doing here? I thought you were still in New York," he said, thumbing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose as he walked over to Ramin, who peeled himself off the wall to meet him halfway. "Aren't you still—Is everything alright?" A show, Ramin had been on contract for some stretch on Broadway, and he looked—well, he looked good. As usual. Horribly. Hadley stuck his hands in the pockets of his well-worn jeans and tried not to resent him for it.

Ramin just laughed, a noise too loud and bright for the dirty, crowded alley. It caught other people's attention and Hadley resented that a little too. "Don't worry, I'm not on the run or anything," he said, clasping Hadley's shoulder before he pulled him in hard for a hug that Hadley barely survived. "You were amazing. Even from the cheap seats I knew you were amazing." Straight into Hadley's ear.

Hadley pushed him away, shoulders rounding, face hot. Cheap bar soap was what he'd used while Ramin smelled… expensive. Woody, spicy, a little boozy, but in an artlessly classy way Hadley felt he'd never mastered—he'd probably grabbed a drink at intermission. "You saw? Why didn't you say you were coming, I would've—"

"It was a last-minute thing, don't worry about it. Besides, I promised I would if I could." Ramin's hand slid over his damp back, white cotton thin over his warm skin, and hadn't it been chilly in the alley seconds ago? "Look, you want to grab a drink? Or are you too tired? I know—"

"No, no, let's," Hadley said immediately, looking up at his face, suddenly desperate to convince him of how Awake and Aware and Alert he was, all those good A words, because he hadn't seen Ramin in person in… oh, at least one month. A singular too-long month.

"Great." Ramin hadn't shaved in days and he still looked incredible. Hadley didn't shave for days and he looked homeless. "Great," he said again after a moment, and it wasn't until his grin reappeared that Hadley noticed it had vanished in the first place. The scruff of his beard sparkled with spots of moisture from where he'd shoved his face against Hadley's wet hair. "I'll wait over—"

"Don't be stupid, c'mon," and Hadley grabbed his hand, the hand that Ramin had left on his shoulder, and tugged him forward through the small crowd of people still clustered around the stage door. His mouth moved, he said things to them, but they were people who weren't Ramin so he couldn't recall what any of those things were. Ramin's hand was in his, fingers interlaced with his, and he was laughing as Hadley dragged him through the theatre to his dressing room.

"Ooh, spacious," Ramin said, shoulder against the door jamb and looking around at the musty matchbox Hadley had been occupying for the last three weeks and would keep for the next five months. It looked even smaller with Ramin taking up so much space, even more cluttered when he was so put-together.

"It has a shower, that's all I care about for a place this old," Hadley said with a laugh that hopefully didn't sound too defensive, rummaging around for his wallet and his phone. Someone—not him, of course—had apparently set a bomb off on his dressing table. Crap everywhere, none of it what he wanted—

Ramin let out a soft noise of surprise, leaning as far forward as he could without setting foot in the room. "I remember that," he said softly, arms crossed, squinting at something behind Hadley.

Pictures. Photos he'd stuck to his vanity mirror of his family, friends, and he followed Ramin's line of sight to—ah. A picture of them in front of this very theatre years ago, possibly—probably—taken by Rosalie, when they'd seen… some show or other. Impossible to tell if it had been any good or not because he was smiling into the camera, and Ramin was smiling at him, their arms around each other, wrinkling scarves and creasing coats, and Hadley had no head for productions but he remembered how he'd felt then. Same as he did now, more or less.

Less back then, Hadley thought, looking from the photographic Ramin to the real one. There were dark circles around his glassy eyes, he realized; it softened him somehow. Seven hours on a plane was a lot for anyone, even Ramin.

"We saw… shit, what was it?" Ramin snapped his fingers over and over, tattoos flashing beneath the cuff of his leather jacket. Surely trying to jog his own memory because he had to know better than anyone that Hadley's was a near-complete write-off. " _Troilus and Cressida_ , right? Some tragedy."

"If you say so," he said, scooping his phone off the table where it had been laying in plain sight next to the mirror. His wallet on the other hand… "Do you see my wallet anywhere?" he asked, dragging a hand through his damp hair, turning in place and feeling panicked. Slightly panicked. Very slightly.

"It'll turn up," Ramin said, uncrossing his arms and reaching out to tug at Hadley's elbow. "It's probably in your other pants like usual. Anyway, you don't need it—you're the star. I'm buying, and I'm thirsty, so let's _go_ ," and he barely gave Hadley a chance to grab his jacket before pulling him out of the dressing room. "Or _am_ I buying?" he asked as Hadley led the way back out, nodding and smiling good night at everyone they passed. "What're you in the mood for? Pub or…"

"Where are you staying?" jumped out of Hadley's mouth rather than _pub's fine_ even if it wasn't particularly fine, even if he'd had his fill of strangers for the day, because if Ramin wanted to go to a pub he'd go. Of course he'd go. "What hotel? Some of them have quite decent setups, you know."

"Oh, I know." Ramin laughed from somewhere behind him. "Trust me, I know."

The dark, mischievous tone just begged for Hadley to toss a backward glance over his shoulder, but he resisted. Texted Rosalie instead to let her know he'd be home very late indeed before he shoved his phone in his jacket pocket.

"I got an Airbnb, actually," Ramin continued. "Not too far, cheaper than a hotel on short notice, _and_ there's wine. Adult-sized bottles of wine that don't cost an arm and a leg."

"Short notice?" That was too provocative for Hadley to ignore as they emerged out into the alley, his eyes on Ramin under the streetlights. "How short? I thought…" He couldn't say what he'd thought, and it finally sunk in that Ramin hadn't told him anything. A last-minute thing—he'd thought he'd meant swinging by to take in the show, not necessarily flying to London in the first place, but then surely he would've told him what he was planning? "How long are you in town for?" he asked casually.

"I don't know yet." There was something unfamiliar about Ramin's expression as he shrugged, loping along beside him as they left the alley and proceeded up the street. "When I know, you'll know. Deal?"

Unhappiness, Hadley decided, shivering as the cool night air settled over him. That's what it was—Ramin looked unhappy. Quietly so, and that was unfamiliar too. Ramin wasn't the sort. Hadley had known his share of brooding actors—he was one, from time to time—and Ramin had never been the type. He was sparkling, dependably cheery. Flip-flopping between grecian masks wasn't his bag. Typically wasn't, anyway.

But in the alley earlier, hadn't his smile faded in an instant? Hadn't he looked so serious? And in the dressing room, staring at the photo of the two of them, mightn't there have been a sense of wistfulness? Even sadness? And now he was reserved at best, reluctant to share, to answer Hadley's questions. Something had to be wrong. Something—

" _Careful_ ," Ramin barked, grip tight on the back of Hadley's belt to stop him stepping off the kerb and right into traffic, the blast of a horn warping the air around them. "Shit, Hadley, watch where you're going."

"Sorry," he muttered, heart pounding, feeling a touch too British for his own good as he stared up at Ramin's shocked face. "Sorry. I—I wasn't…" Trailed off as Ramin shook his head hard, stomach lurching at the visible relief that swept over Ramin. He'd nearly been pasted by a cab, and he hadn't even had that promised free drink yet. What a way to go. "Sorry."

Ramin was still holding onto his belt, and used it to give him a slight shake. "I didn't fly all the way out here to see you just for you to get yourself killed accidentally," he said, stern before it melted away under the warmth of one of those brilliant smiles. Then he released his belt to slap a broad hand against Hadley's back, tipping his chin up at the walk signal. "March, soldier."

"Right. Yes. Marching," Hadley said, saluting, heart thumping as Ramin ran his hand up over his back to his shoulder, a steadying pressure palpable through all the layers of his clothing, and nothing he hadn't felt before.

_Not too far_ , Ramin had said, but they took the tube anyway because Ramin had demonstrably lost all trust in his ability to navigate a London street. Stops, multiple stops, _myriad_ stops even, and if the rocking of the train hadn't been enough to lull him he might've grilled Ramin on what precisely constituted 'not too far' and been forcibly reminded all over again that Ramin was Canadian with a Canadian's sense of relative distance.

But the train did rock, and there was the hypnotic hum of steel on steel, and he'd done two shows a day every day for the last five, and the energy required to get through them all had deserted him an hour ago. The second wind that had set his sails a-billow, so to speak, at first sight of Ramin was also in danger of blowing its last as they rode along in a companionable silence that lasted until he yawned so long and so wide that his jaw popped loudly.

Ramin, standing before him—looming, really, not that he could help it—yawned in turn. "Thanks for that," he said, smile audible as Hadley nodded absently, conscious of Ramin gazing down at him, his knee bumping against Ramin's leg with every jolt of the railway car. "You're going to manage one drink and then pass out, aren't you?"

His ears had to be glowing. "That is entirely possible," he said lightly, "but I can tell you that I have finally mastered the art of sleep-talking and I feel confident stating that you won't notice a drop in quality between my conscious and unconscious conversational skills."

"I'd notice," Ramin said, shifting his weight as they glided slowly into a turn, holding tight to the yellow pole that pressed into Hadley's thigh. "Trust me."

Slowly, because he was tired and not for any other reason, Hadley looked up at Ramin. His eyes had to travel over a certain amount of real estate until he met Ramin's, an amount he was certain qualified as _not too much_ —from Ramin's strong denim-clad thighs, where Hadley's eyes had naturally come to rest as they'd been fixed downwards, up to waist-height and higher, along a vertical strip of mottled grey shirt that was revealed by his unzipped jacket; it clung the way so many of Ramin's shirts tended to. A Henley, he guessed, given the buttons, the bottom secured and the rest abandoned, and Hadley swallowed at the sight of the dip of Ramin's collarbones, the upward sweep of his neck, unshaven bristles shadowing his skin.

"No, you wouldn't," Hadley said when he met Ramin's eyes at last, hyperaware of the fact that he'd spent all damn day talking and he was thrashed. That was why his voice sounded so rough: his occupation. "I'm a master," he continued, pushing his glasses up, "I can fool anyone. Next jubilee, I'm going to receive a knighthood for my unparalleled skill, just you wait."

"Maybe you could give me some tips." Ramin slid his hand up the pole, long fingers wrapped fully—easily—around it to keep himself upright as the train rounded another turn. "Apparently I talk in my sleep."

Hadley, frowning, said, "I don't remember you ever doing that before." They'd bunked together during a couple of tours, productions, visits—any number of occasions, really, which just made it all the stranger for Ramin to turn up out of the blue the way he had, gotten an Airbnb the way he had rather than sleep in the Fraser guest room—and while he was far from the heaviest sleeper on earth, Ramin had never woken him up. "Except for that time you started crying because you thought you'd—"

"Don't." Ramin raised a single warning finger, swaying to the side as the train resumed forward motion. "Do not mention that again, it happened _once_. I can't believe you remember _that_ when you can't even remember your own birthday."

"My birthday doesn't matter," Hadley said, not bothering to hide his smirk before he sobered once more. "When did you start? Did Mandy tell you or did you wake yourself up nattering away?"

Even if they hadn't been mates, hadn't been close, hadn't been actors who'd acted _together_ , Hadley would still have recognized when Ramin hit the switch because for normal people it was called _lying_. Ramin, arguably a liar by trade, was still fundamentally an honest person, particularly emotionally, and he could be unrelenting about it which made it frustrating when Hadley was worn down from—from any number of things, really. Things he wasn't in any position to complain about.

So it was perplexing, and slightly alarming, to see Ramin stiffen in the instant before he found a plausible excuse to not look at Hadley while he said emotionlessly, "Mandy told me." By itself it didn't sound like a lie, no more so than when Ramin finally registered the illuminated route map overhead that he'd been staring at and added, "This is our stop."

It didn't sound like a lie at all because who else would've told Ramin he talked in his sleep besides his wife? Because, again, Hadley had known his share of slutty actors—had been one himself once upon a time—and, to the dismay of many, Ramin wasn't the type. Not _his_ dismay, of course, because they were friends. Exceptionally good friends. Everybody thought so.

Although maybe if he'd been a better friend he would've called Ramin out on—on any of it, really. On the weird way he said _Mandy told me_ , his rented flat, his sudden appearance, on any of it. But then Hadley wasn't the one who'd named his kid after his best friend; he perhaps wasn't as devoted as he ought to be. No, he kept his mouth shut and kept on Ramin's heels as they joined the flow of outbound traffic away from the tube and back out to the streets.

"No wonder you insulted my dressing room," Hadley said, pivoting in place to take in the flat, "your standards are far too high, my dear." Top floor of a renovated industrial something-or-other with the windows and exposed brick and ample open space to prove it, the sort of stylish place he'd longed for in his younger days.

Now he couldn't help but notice how clean it was, how uncluttered, how utterly child-free. No toys, no scattered clothes or dings in the furniture, scuffs in the floor, dirty fingerprints on the lowered blinds. Everything was pristine, fresh from the catalogue, one room flowing seamlessly into the next. The soft lighting in the main area and distant kitchen revealed grey furniture accented perfectly by vivid pops of colour in the form of cushions, woven rugs on refinished floors, a throw over the end of the queen-sized bed, polished oak tables and cupboards.

Noticed too how Ramin's carry-on suitcase sat like a rock by the door, unopened. "Packed light," Hadley called out, strolling over to poke the duffle bag beside it with his toe before belatedly following Ramin's lead and kicking off his tennis shoes. "Short notice, right?"

"Yeah." Ramin rifled through the kitchen with an enviable lack of self-consciousness and a great deal of clinking glass. "Red, right? There's a decent white—"

"Red," Hadley said, shrugging his jacket off and slinging it over the back of the IKEA sofa next to Ramin's before dropping onto it himself. "Work?"

"What?" A muffled _pop_ as Ramin finally uncorked a bottle.

"Are you here for work?" he asked, twisting around with an arm slung along the back of the couch to watch as Ramin poured out two glasses. Even from a distance it looked like a worrisome amount of wine on a full stomach, let alone an empty one. "You're being very cagey about all this," Hadley continued blithely. He'd eat when he was hungover. "Did you have to sign some NDA? Is it Disney? Are they getting people who can carry a tune for their ridiculous live-action cash-grabs for once? Blink twice if I'm on the right track."

"It's not—" Ramin shook his head as he approached the living area, fish bowls in hand as he said, "I'm not here for work," only to come to an abrupt halt as he looked up at Hadley, presently running a hand through his hair and finding it dry at last. His eyes widened ever so briefly before he turned on one socked heel. "You know what, wine was a bad call. How about whiskey, there's whiskey, this place is stocked—"

"Ugh." Hadley dropped his head to his arm before he raised it to fix Ramin with a look. "You promised me wine," he said with as much dryness as he could muster. "'Adult-sized bottles of wine' you said. Get your arse over here and sit down already."

A bit like ordering a dog about, but an obedient one because Ramin did in fact make it to the sofa, he did sit down, and he did grace Hadley with his own wading pool full of red wine. The cheering effect of clinking glasses was ruined somewhat by how Ramin promptly gulped down half his wine, set his glass down hard on the coffee table, and scrubbed both hands over his face.

Let no one think Hadley couldn't recognize his cue when it was blisteringly obvious. "What's going on? Talk. Tell me what's up because I gotta tell you, mate, I'm starting to fear the worst. If you need an alibi…"

"Ha ha," Ramin said, elbows braced on his knees as he fidgeted, staring at the coffee table and killing Hadley's admittedly feeble joke dead.

The silence dragged on until Hadley stopped watching Ramin twisting his wedding band around his finger mindlessly, remembered he was holding a glass of wine, and drank some of it to get the dialogue flowing again. "Okay, it's not work, we've established that much. You're not being sued for breach of contract, you're not on the brink of insolvency, you're definitely not about to ask me for a loan—which I would give you, by the way, in case it is that."

"It's not," Ramin said wryly, leaving off playing with his ring to reclaim his wineglass and toy with that instead after drinking a considerable portion of it. Back and forth rolled the stem between his long fingers so that the remaining dregs sloshed up the sides, dangerous near so much upholstery belonging to someone else.

"Not work, not financial… Personal, then? Personal." Hadley said it almost entirely for his own benefit, wishing this was happening at a time when he wasn't so done in. His brain wasn't up to this sort of puzzle, not at the end of the week, and the wine wasn't doing anything to help. It was clear something had happened, something that had put Ramin on a transatlantic flight at the last minute— _short notice_ , he kept saying, _short notice_. Something he'd barely packed for, and as he was flying _away_ from his family it couldn't be anything the matter with _them_ —

"I'm sorry, I'm not up to teasing this out of you," Hadley said at last, shoving his free hand up under his glasses to rub his eyes. "I'm shattered, and I can barely keep up with you to begin with—"

"Mandy and I had a fight." Ramin swallowed the millimetre or two of wine left to him before setting the glass down to take Hadley's right out of his hand and polish that lot off as well. "We had a fight. Kind of a big one," he said, glancing at Hadley's face, and whatever he saw there propelled him up off the sofa and back to the kitchen. "Wine was definitely a bad choice."

Hadley had no idea what Ramin had seen because Hadley had no idea period. A fight? "You had a fight," he said blankly, struggling to slot that piece of info into the rest of the puzzle. Failed. "And now you're… here?"

"She thought we should spend some time apart," Ramin said, returning with tumblers of whiskey. Two, because he'd taken Hadley's wineglass as well as his own, and they were also very full. "I didn't—She thought it was a good idea."

"She thought it was a good idea," Hadley said, like a parrot. He and Mandy had had a fight? What had that looked like? They were so—They didn't fight. They weren't normal people. "Because you had a—a fight," he said slowly. "Like an argument? A difference of opinion?"

Ramin swallowed half his whiskey and coughed, laughing, as though it were a joke and an even less amusing one than his previous offer of an alibi. "A difference of opinion, yeah," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "We _rowed_ , as you'd say, and she thought it would be better for everyone—for the kids—if I… wasn't there. For a little bit. Because I need to 'figure things out.'" The air quotes were implied in the way Ramin grimaced.

"Because… you…" and regretted his sluggish brain, his hesitation, for the awful look that had settled on Ramin's face in the interim. He ought to have managed _something_ , some better consolation, and he was certain he would have if some ugly part of him wasn't so… morbidly curious. Not that he'd indulge that part because Ramin was his friend. His very best friend, and he deserved better.

 _The best_ , he thought, clasping his shoulder in a demonstration of properly brotherly caring. He resolved to say as much to that effect but what came out was, "I'm sorry, I'm knackered. I barely know my own name at the best of times—"

"No, I—" Ramin pushed his hand off and lurched off the sofa, full of nervous energy that didn't take him very far. "You're right, you're tired, I knew you were tired—this isn't the right time for this. I'll call you a cab, I'll pay—"

Going home was tempting. Going home was _extremely_ tempting. _Ring me tomorrow_ , he'd say, and Ramin would nod. _We'll figure this out tomorrow_ , he'd say, and Ramin would nod. _Promise?_ he'd ask, and Ramin would nod, and it wouldn't happen because he'd think twice of troubling Hadley further. Whatever was wrong in Ramin's world that had pushed him to reach out would not fix itself overnight while Hadley wasn't looking, and he'd hate himself forever for not helping when he'd been asked.

"Nay, there's more in this," Hadley said, frowning as Ramin fiddled with the phone he'd pulled from his back pocket. "I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings, as thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts the worst of words."

It was worth it, worth all the years of frustration, of lost sleep, of self-doubt, to astound Ramin. It didn't happen very often no matter what Ramin said, how he praised him with uncommon regularity, because when it _did_ happen Ramin would look at him like—like he—well, like the way he looked at Hadley then, lowering his phone. "Those aren't your lines."

"Nope," Hadley said, pleased despite everything that his fickle memory had come through when he needed it to. "Act three, before Othello and Iago…" _talk about murdering his wife_ , and the pleasure was gone in an instant. He finally had a taste of that whiskey Ramin had poured for him. "You had a row. More than one?" Returned Ramin's sheepish nod with one of his own. "More than one. And she— _she_?—thought you should spend some time apart so you can… 'figure things out.'"

Laid out like that, it seemed straightforward enough. Downright tedious, really, like a dozen other married fights he'd heard about, or even been a party to when he'd done something especially idiotic and wouldn't admit it. Putting the kids first, going to separate corners—very mature, but then he'd expect nothing less from the Karimloos. But the international travel was too extreme for it to be anything pedestrian.

"So, what did you do?" he asked, on the edge of his seat with whiskey in hand, looking up at Ramin. "Or what does she think you did?"

"I…" Ramin on stage was all about carefully controlled movements; every shake and tremble, no matter how small, was deliberate. But Ramin wasn't on stage, and there was no script. Nothing appeared feigned about how he polished off his whiskey and set the glass on the coffee table alongside his discarded phone only to stride away, hand sweeping over his short hair. It looked natural, but then he always looked natural to Hadley. Unrehearsed.

Undercut by how lifelessly he said, "I haven't done anything. I love Mandy."

"And yet you're here," Hadley said, suspicion pricking as he watched him pace in fits and starts. "Why _are_ you here? You could've stayed over, you know you're always welcome, I don't care if—" The sight of Ramin twisting his wedding band around his finger hit Hadley like a sandbag dropped on his head.

 _Maybe you could give me some tips_ , he'd said on the train. _Apparently I talk in my sleep._

_I haven't done anything._

"You didn't want me to know you were here," Hadley said, blood draining from his face. "In London. That's why, isn't it?"

"Hadley—"

"You said you came to see me, but you also said it was a last-minute decision. Which is it? Did your plans change?" Set the glass down on the table and shoved himself up off the sofa in the same motion, nudging his glasses back into place when they slipped forward. Upright, he had to be upright, and closer to see Ramin better. His reactions. Fundamentally honest, he'd always thought; exert enough pressure and Ramin would crack, give the whole game away.

"Who did you come to see?" Hadley asked, and if he'd been tired before he wasn't any longer. "Who? Was it—" The chill from the alley returned as an icy stab of pointless jealousy, and he was degrees away from shivering as he followed a still-pacing Ramin away from the living area towards the bed. The bed he hadn't been meant to see, not really. "Sierra's in town, isn't she? She rang me just the other day."

He'd expected to see tension continue to thrum through Ramin at the sudden mention of her name. He'd expected to see hunched shoulders or a stiffer gait, a continued lack of eye contact. He hadn't expected Ramin to turn around, look straight at him, and _laugh_. It sounded… normal. It sounded completely normal, sincere—totally unlike his declaration of continuing love for his wife—but there was no relief there for Hadley. Not when Ramin clapped both hands to the top of his head as though to stop it falling off.

"Oh my God," Ramin said, laughing at him, like he'd done something bonkers. _Ha ha, classic Hadley_. "Oh my _God_. I'm not—What are you—Oh my God, _Sierra_. You're the stupidest man alive."

The only thing that kept the words from being hurtful was that it was Ramin saying them, and he said them with such bone-melting fondness that, despite the emotional whiplash he was suffering, Hadley would've been more than happy to repeat the entire hideous conversation just to hear them a second time. Ramin said them the way he'd say _You have to audition, you'll kill it_ and _They'd be crazy to give the part to anyone else_ and _I told them I'm not doing this without you and I mean it_.

"Not while Boris Johnson exists," Hadley said weakly. Wrong about the person, that much was clear, but the initial premise—Ramin hadn't denied it. But who else could it be? Sierra was beautiful, and strange, and she and Ramin had always had chemistry, an unspoken sort of—

"Jesus Christ. _Sierra_ ," Ramin said again, because once hadn't been enough. Dropped his hands to unthinkingly hitch his sleeves back up, revealing a few distracting centimetres of firm forearm, before he advanced on Hadley. "I never should've named my son after you," he said roughly, amusement fading, and _that_ was hurtful until he wrapped his hand around the nape of Hadley's neck, pulling him in. "I say your name in my sleep," Ramin whispered before he kissed him.

His mouth on Hadley's felt like every curtain call he'd ever had happening all at once, wonderful and awful at the same time. Ramin's lips moved against his and God damn him but Hadley stood there and kissed him back, mind reeling.

 _Home late, Ramin's taking me out for a post-show drink_ , he'd texted Rosalie.

 _Knowing you two it's more like "home tomorrow"_ , she'd replied.

Hadley peeled Ramin's hand off his neck and lurched backwards. Away. Very away, even if it killed him, which was a strong possibility judging by the way his heart was hammering in his chest. "Stop. Ramin, stop, this isn't—"

Something knocked into the back of his calves and he startled: the coffee table. Something else that might kill him. Navigated around it, hands up as though Ramin were a dangerous animal that needed warding off though he knew that couldn't be further from the truth. "We're mates, yeah? This isn't—We can't—"

Ramin's breath was hot and heavy and boozy on Hadley's face as he crowded him back, back against what sight unseen felt like the raised arm of the sofa because he didn't dare look away from him this time. "Months, Hadley. I've been dreaming about you for _months_ , and after years of—of the shows and the gigs and the distance and _you_ , God, _you_ —"

There was nowhere for him to go, not with how Ramin had him boxed in, caught against the sofa; it was easy—too easy—for him to steal another kiss or two. Three.

Months? _Years?_

"Fuck, Ramin—" Dizzy, Hadley pushed him back again, pulling his hands away quickly afterwards like they'd been scalded. He couldn't touch him, not now, not if he was going to be reasonable, and one of them had to be though he was swiftly forgetting why. _Years_. "Stop. We can't do this, we're not— _you're_ not this guy. You're—you're married, we're—God, Ramin, remember getting married? To other people? Wasn't there something in your vows about adultery?"

"I'm tired of it. I'm tired of trying to be perfect when I'm not," Ramin said with a ragged sort of desperation Hadley had never heard from him before off-stage. "I'm tired of feeling guilty all the time. I'm tired of trying not to want this, of just being your friend." Caught his raised hands and pushed them aside as he ducked in to kiss Hadley again, and settled for kissing his temple instead when Hadley turned his burning face away. "I can't handle just being your friend anymore, not after so long. Tell me to fuck off if you want, just, please…"

Throat working around what felt like broken glass, Hadley squeezed his eyes shut. Ramin's confession was an echo of everything he'd felt for—for as long as he'd known him, really. As long as they'd performed together, travelled together, written songs and drank and cried together, shared a thousand moments in life together. If anyone had asked who his hero was, his role model, he would've pointed at Ramin without hesitation and said, _Him. That one over there, the homely one_.

His friend.

The scant centimetres of air between their bodies was blistering, their breathing equally laboured. _I'm tired of trying to be perfect when I'm not._ God knew _he_ wasn't perfect. Hadley'd tried to be good for Rosalie, for his family, but sometimes he failed, he let people down—let himself down—and even if it was only in his mind it still counted. He'd made peace with that a long time ago, that it was impossible to be good _all_ the time, to do the right thing _all_ the time. To be perfect. Or so he'd thought.

"Don't ask me to keep pretending," Ramin said with a fragile quietness, tracing his fingertips along the edges of Hadley's jaw, up to his ears to tug the arms of Hadley's glasses back, righting them. His eyes, when Hadley could no longer avoid them, were shiny, pained. "Please."

Hadley's hands rose of their own volition to frame Ramin's face; he blamed the scrape of beard against his palms, the memory of too many nights on stage. Wrapped up in the strange intimacy of publicly performing with someone he trusted absolutely, his wife laughing at them afterwards, snapping pictures at a pub somewhere, _You two are something else_.

Too many days after, when they were apart.

Ramin's eyes were so dark in the brief moment before their lips met again, his big hands so gentle around Hadley's wrists, careful, deliberate like they were when he was on stage, when he channelled all that strength into one clean line of physicality. He did that then when he released Hadley's wrists to span his ribs, palm his waist and lift him bodily up. Not to sit on the arm of the sofa, the way Hadley first thought, but to really _lift_ him, carry him past it, arm hooked under his ass.

"How much did you have tonight?" Hadley breathed into Ramin's ear. It only made sense to wrap his legs around Ramin's hips, as he did his arms around his broad shoulders. He'd done some carrying of his own, but rarely had he been carried, and never in private. _Never_ like this. It was… surreal. "Before you showed up in that alley."

"Nowhere near enough to really justify this," Ramin said, lips against his neck, hand squeezing his ass as he walked effortlessly through the flat.

On a rational level, Hadley knew that Ramin was the bigger man, outweighing him by at least two stone with a number of centimetres on him in height. Not to say Hadley was a slouch—you couldn't be lazy if you were going to be performing live six hours a day—but Ramin was one of the fittest guys he'd ever worked with, if not _the_ fittest. But it was one thing to know that and another thing to feel it, to experience that difference as Ramin sat down on the bed, Hadley in his lap, his very solid body trembling beneath him, the mattress springs squealing.

Comparatively, their kisses before had been chaste and short-lived. Now they were dirtier, all open mouths and licking tongues as though some law had been repealed but they didn't know how long for. When Ramin bit his bottom lip, Hadley gasped, hips jerking forward. He sealed their mouths together wetly only to pull away when Ramin, having rucked up his t-shirt and decided that wasn't enough, dragged it up and off him entirely. The air was cool, Ramin's calluses rough against his back as he tried to pull him closer. Shivering, Hadley spread his legs wide, knees sliding over the IKEA duvet, and dropped his weight down into Ramin's lap.

"Oh fuck," Ramin hissed, rolling his own hips, pressing his crotch up against Hadley's. The angle was not ideal, light years away from any kind of truly satisfying pressure, but Ramin didn't appear to mind. Rocking so that the front of his jeans brushed against Hadley's again and again, he pressed kisses to the corner of Hadley's mouth, scraping his face raw with his scruff.

"More bed," Hadley said in a burst of frustration and what he feared would be his last instance of higher-level thinking for some time, let alone shame. He pushed at Ramin's shoulders, fingers curling in the material of his damned Henley. "We need more bed. Take this off. Lie down."

If there was any confusion of priorities in his words, Ramin dealt with it admirably by squirming backwards, regrettably out from under him but further onto the bed, and tossed his shirt away after peeling it off. Sprawled on the bed, propped up by one elbow, Ramin licked his lips. "C'mere," he said, fingers crooking.

For a moment Hadley straddled him again, but for only a moment because Ramin rolled them over so Hadley was the one flat on his back. If he'd had any objections to their new positioning—not that he did, but if he _had_ —they would've died unspoken once Ramin hitched one thick thigh high up between his legs, firm against his crotch, and Hadley could only moan. His hands slid over Ramin's shoulders compulsively, one drifting up to squeeze where his neck met his shoulder in encouragement as Ramin began to rock against him with intent.

It shouldn't have been enough. It shouldn't have been as good as it was. They weren't even naked, for Christ's sake, but that didn't stop Hadley from gasping as Ramin pushed down against him, weight delicious against his cock, untouched 'til now but still hard under two horrible layers of clothing. Hadley felt almost claustrophobic with that huge body over his. Ramin's toned arms held him up, forearms planted deep in the duvet on either side of Hadley's head, and he almost laughed as he remembered Sierra talking about yoga. _Planking isn't just for teens, pal, it's good exercise!_

Then Ramin ground his own crotch against Hadley's trapped thigh and laughing was entirely out of the question. Not with the air dizzying, hot with their exhalations as they rutted against each other and panted, the springs screeching bloody murder beneath them.

"I had dreams about this," Ramin said. Kissing his cheek, nuzzling him, so close he was just a blur. "After a show somewhere, here or New York, somewhere with an audience who clap at anything and everything."

"You—you think they clap for anything in London?" Hadley laughed shakily, turning his head, eyelids fluttering as Ramin angled his hips and pressed his weight down on top of him for long incredible seconds. He could feel Ramin's cock crushed against his thigh, hard as the rest of him.

"Drunks," Ramin said, lips brushing his ear, "a whole nation of problem drinkers," then sucked on his earlobe while rocking more forcefully against him, making Hadley moan louder than before. "In your place after, and we'd have to be quiet because it's got thin walls and your daughter was asleep in the next room." He started to move faster against Hadley, ever more purposeful. "You'd try—try so hard, biting your lip, your fist, but it wouldn't work."

Hadley moaned again, eyes sliding shut at Ramin's rhythm, at the pressure against his cock, at the things he was saying. Things he'd imagined himself for ages, things he couldn't blame on dreams.

"You couldn't shut up," Ramin continued, voice growing rougher, "so I had to make you come quick, just get it over with. Sometimes I'd imagine using my hand—" the mattress shifted, Ramin's weight resettling itself, then a slow squeeze of Hadley's cock through his jeans that made him whimper "—just jerk you off in the shower, water on hot and loud. You against the wall, just letting me—letting me touch you."

New sounds, sharp compared to the perpetual wheeze of the springs: the clinking of Hadley's belt buckle, the buzz of the zipper on his jeans. Ramin rolled off him, tugged at Hadley's shoulder until he was lying on his side, frames digging into his temple, the bridge of his nose. It wasn't until he laid facing him that Ramin pushed his hand down the front of his jeans and cupped his dick properly, gave him a lingering squeeze through his underwear that had him arching forward for more, mouth falling open around a shameless moan as he clutched at Ramin's arm, palm flat against the curve of his flexing bicep.

"Yeah, just like that," Ramin said. "Just like that. I'd try to do you fast but you can be so stubborn sometimes, want to draw everything out. Make it last. Rolling your head back against the tiles, loud enough they can hear you down the street, but I wouldn't care. Not with you fucking my hand and loving it."

Hadley could see it, was there already—had been there already countless times in his own mind. On the road, Ramin snoring faintly in their shared hotel room, oblivious to how he tortured himself in the ensuite with imaginings of how different things might've been. The reality was somehow worse; he was steadily losing his mind as Ramin's hand played with his cock, barely jerking it through his briefs, and he squirmed helplessly. Released Ramin's arm only to run it down his rippling chest, grab unceremoniously at the crotch of his straining jeans, surprising a groan out of him.

"No, lemme just—" Ramin said, plucking Hadley's hand away, "don't—"

Disappointment didn't have time to register when Ramin pulled his hand out of Hadley's jeans because in the next moment he was pulling Hadley back on top of him, his right hand snaking between their bodies as Hadley instinctively straddled him once more. They were like a couple of magnets, how naturally they slotted together, and Hadley's zipper rasped briefly as Ramin shoved his hand back down the front of his jeans, between hot skin and underwear this time.

"Put your hand back on my neck," Ramin breathed against his face as he gave Hadley's dick an agonizingly dry tug.

He did as he was told. _Of course_ he did as he was told. Hadley's palm slid against the sweaty curve of Ramin's neck the way it had so many times before, pressing against the nape, nails scratching lightly as he bent over him, pressed his forehead to Ramin's shoulder. It didn't matter that his lenses were fogged, he couldn't keep his eyes open as Ramin pulled at his cock; he hadn't been so hard in years, it felt like. Not since that first time he'd fucked Rosalie, maybe, on the stairs of her flat after they'd dated for a month.

"I dreamt I sucked you off during _Les Mis_ ," Ramin said, huge palm finally slippery against the leaking head of Hadley's cock, spreading precome around messily. "I dreamt I peeled off that costume, bent you over, and fucked you right there on stage before God and—"

"Nick Jonas," Hadley panted, then groaned deeply as Ramin rubbed one rough fingerpad against the slit. "Oh fuck _me_." It was either his sweat or Ramin's that dampened his skin as he clung to him, face tucked close against his throat, frames shoved uncomfortably askew.

"I woke Mandy up dreaming about that." Ramin's hand was gaining speed as it worked his cock, alternately slick and dry but so good. Better than Hadley had ever imagined. "Can you believe it? In bed with my wife and moaning your name—"

"Christ, just—" Hadley sat up in Ramin's lap to rock against him as best he could, fingers curled over his shoulder for balance and knees slipping over the duvet as he struggled to thrust into Ramin's hand, eyes squeezed shut.

"Just what? Tell me, tell me what you want—"

Ramin's fist, moving, so perfect around his cock, that's all he wanted, and the words came heaving out of him: "This, this, Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Ramin, I want _this_ , I've wanted you for years—"

Ramin surged up against him, or maybe Hadley pulled him up, but they were kissing again, his arms wrapped around him, blunt nails scratching down his shoulder blades and he was going to lose his glasses for sure this time as Ramin sucked his tongue, tugged his cock harder, fist so goddamn tight, and Hadley was coming in his pants like a teenager with none of the attendant shame. Groaning into Ramin's sloppy wet mouth even as his hips jerked against him, his hands scrabbling at the sweat-smooth skin of his neck, shoulders, trying to find a satisfying grip and failing.

"Yeah, that's it, that's so good, babe," Ramin whispered to him, lips brushing against the corner of his mouth, his cheek.

Objecting to being called _babe_ was the last thing on Hadley's mind while Ramin's beard scratched against his tender skin; while his teeth scraped against his throat; while he sucked hard on his thrumming pulse point as he gave Hadley's cock one last squeeze, making him shudder and bite back some undoubtedly high-pitched and deeply embarrassing noise.

Hadley might have made such a noise anyway when Ramin released his cock; he couldn't say. Real awareness didn't return until he felt sticky fingers against his lips and he didn't hesitate, just opened his mouth and sucked the come off them, vision unfocussed as he stared at Ramin's flushed face, so close to his own he could've counted his eyelashes if his glasses hadn't been about to fall off, barely clinging on to the tip of his nose.

The sight through his streaky lenses was of Ramin staring at his mouth, at his fingers going into Hadley's mouth, rubbing slowly back and forth over the flat of his tongue, and Hadley licked up between them just to see Ramin's eyes roll back in his head, his free hand an insistent fist against the small of Hadley's back.

"Hadley…"

For good measure, he bit down gently on Ramin's fingers, just after the second knuckle, and could've laughed at how Ramin swore, pulling them free, only to replace them with his own mouth.

"Please," he said, easing Hadley's glasses off only to toss them who-knew-where. Cupped his face with both hands and kissed his mouth, his nose, his forehead as he babbled, "Please, let me—Can I—"

"Yeah." Hadley shifted in his lap, thighs burning, and let his head tip back as Ramin kissed his throat, his collarbones, his sticky fingers scratching over his chest. "Yes. Whatever it is, whatever you want, you don't have to ask," he said, running his hands over Ramin's taut back, eyebrows knitting as Ramin licked, then sucked at his nipple. "God, you could've said _fancy a shag in the loo_ in that wretched impression of me you did years ago and I still would've said yes."

He felt Ramin's chuckle, his groan, face pressed to his chest the way it was. "For the last time, my impression of you was excellent," Ramin said. "Now take your pants off and get on the bed. Hands and knees, if it's convenient."

Those same knees popped as Hadley shifted himself, dropped onto the duvet beside Ramin and fought to get his jeans and sticky underwear off, belt buckle clanking as it hit the floor next to the decorative throw blanket they'd dislodged. Socks for good measure, and he was rather impressed with himself for managing it all despite Ramin giving him a handjob so good he'd temporarily dissociated from his body not two minutes prior.

Yet despite spending most of his waking adult life on stage, making an ass of himself for money, his innate sense of mortification never truly faded. It reasserted itself from time to time: after failed auditions; curtain calls, oddly enough; karaoke nights at the pub. And apparently as he assumed the requested position on a total stranger's bed, the mattress springs yowling like alley cats with every movement, but he had plenty of practice shoving it aside. As he shoved aside the guilt that washed over him like tidewater over the shore.

And he had plenty of reason to this time. Blinking owlishly over his shoulder at Ramin, the too-distant blur of him resolved into a far more detailed shape as he drew closer. A vastly more impressive shape, and even if Hadley's brain hadn't possessed the intelligence of a wrung-out sponge he still wouldn't have been envious. It was pointless. Ramin was just impressive all the time, constantly, in any number of ways, and Hadley had been backstage with him too many times, had followed his Instagram for too long, to truly be surprised by anything about him anymore.

Physically, that was.

"I hope you didn't pay much for this place," Hadley said, fingers curling in the duvet as Ramin crawled onto the bed next to him.

"One-eighty-nine Canadian per night." There was a hint of a laugh in Ramin's voice as he ran a hand down Hadley's spine, kissed his shoulder. "Why?"

"Because this bed is godawful," he said, the damn thing's ear-splitting squealing proving his point as Ramin shifted. "Like—like really—" He inhaled sharply as Ramin's hand pushed between his legs to fondle his balls.

"Really what?" His hand skated further down, teasing against the underside of Hadley's cock. "I think it's been worth every penny so far."

He groaned as Ramin cupped it, thumb smearing through his spent come, blood rushing to that point of connection with dizzying speed. "It's just really bad," he said lamely, then showed how much he cared about the mattress by biting his lip and rocking backwards against Ramin's hand, savouring the friction until Ramin withdrew.

The whole bed frame creaked dangerously under their combined weight as he shifted; Hadley felt him settle behind him, his knees brushing his calves. "I'll try to distract you from how 'really bad' it is," Ramin said, one hand at his hip, the other—

Hadley sucked in a sharp, deep breath as Ramin's fingers rubbed wetly over his asshole. Chewed his lip bloody as Ramin teased him, fingers like a lightning rod against his skin, a shocking pleasure of a particular kind he hadn't felt in… in years. Since uni, maybe, which felt like an eternity ago, along with everything else that had ever happened to him because time was meaningless while Ramin carried on touching him. Mapping the pucker of tight muscle with his fingers, sometimes poking a tip in, sometimes trailing up the crack or down to rub Hadley's balls one at a time, and they seemed to grow heavier each time he removed his hand, the weight of them an ache rivalled only by his cock. If Hadley were inclined to dramatics—which, duh—he might compare it to tempered iron, describe how it went untouched but for where it brushed torturously against his belly, but he wasn't interested in saying much of anything just then.

Unless, of course, it was along the lines of incoherent swearing and groaning, and it only worsened as Ramin pressed one of his knuckles to the sensitive skin beneath his balls, a finger flicking against his hole.

"I should've known you'd be like this," Ramin said with a smugness that bordered on insufferable as he gave one of his cheeks a deep squeeze.

"I—ah—should've known _you'd_ be a fucking tease," Hadley gritted out, pushing back against him impatiently. He hadn't done this in years, they apparently didn't have any lube besides spit and his own come while Ramin was… _impressive_. "Just bloody well get on with it already," he snapped, and was immediately annoyed by how much of a caricature of Britishness he'd become in that split-second.

"In a sec." The last thing he wanted to hear next to _just kidding, goodbye forever_ , but then Ramin replaced his finger with the broad blunt pressure of his thumb, rubbing his spit-wet hole with the flat pad, and all Hadley's irritation vanished like—well, not early morning fog. Not in London. But something that vanished equally fast. His morals and commitment to monogamy when Ramin was all over him, perhaps.

Hadley shoved a hand up under the pillows to grapple for the edge of the mattress as Ramin's thumb moved rapidly back and forth against his hole, never quite pushing in. "Jesus Christ, Ramin." Just like the dry-humping, it shouldn't have been so good, but it was. It was. Fresh sweat broke out over his entire body as his pulse roared in his head, a single clear note so unlike anything he'd experienced before. A dark, thrumming note that Ramin plucked from him with a musician's skill, over and over, until he couldn't stand the teasing anymore. "Please, Ramin, I can't—"

Bit his lip to keep from crying out in dismay as Ramin's hands left him, but Ramin shifted, reared up behind him, and his hands returned. They slid up Hadley's thighs, over his hips, his lower back; the sweat was rolling off him by then and it was impossible for Ramin to get a decent grip on him without expending serious pressure, downright bruising as he grabbed at Hadley's shoulder, seeking to steady himself.

Not that Hadley was any help—when the thickness of Ramin's stiff prick rubbed up his crack, blunt against his asshole, Hadley rocked back towards it with the enthusiasm of a unionized professional accepting overtime on a bank holiday.

Ramin grunted, muttered something under his breath—it very well may have been Hadley's name. More importantly, he spit into his hand. "Deep breath," he said, and then Ramin was pushing into him at last. _At last_.

The Academy—Hadley hadn't been fucked since he was at the Royal Academy, the knowledge sparking somewhere deep in his mind as a thousand neurons or synapses or whatever all lit up at once, Bonfire Night and New Year's in his brain at the same time because Ramin's cock was an endless and unwavering pressure that forced Hadley to stretch to accommodate him, to curve his spine to take his weight, and he did all of that and more gladly until Ramin was sheathed inside him to the very hilt.

Ramin's hand had migrated from his shoulder to the center of his back; he pushed him down into the mattress. Could've shoved him right into those hateful springs for all Hadley cared, not that he had space for such an emotion. Not while the air was rattling in and out of his lungs, not while he was adjusting to Ramin's girth. Not while he remained convinced that he could feel Ramin's pulse through every one of his fingers, grip satisfyingly painful where they dug into his skin. Like his own, Ramin's heart was pounding.

Then Ramin rocked his hips almost imperceptibly forward. Into him.

Hadley made some noise—he don't know what—and then Ramin was rocking forward harder, faster, and he buried his face in the wrinkled duvet, clinging to it, because the feel of Ramin inside him, pounding him, hands ceaselessly roaming, was enough to make him want to embarrass himself. He wasn't entirely sure how he'd accomplish it, given his current situation, but it seemed inevitable. And true, when Ramin's broad thighs pushed his further apart in search of better balance, all he did was spread his legs wider, as eagerly as any bitch in heat. When Ramin wrapped an arm around his waist, levering Hadley up so that his ass might better meet Ramin's hips just so, he let himself be positioned mindlessly, even gladly.

And when Ramin covered him, dripping sweat onto his back, quick breaths against his ear, and murmured, "Better than I imagined," all he could do was groan in response and reach blindly backward, his hand scrabbling over Ramin's slick side until Ramin grabbed it and slotted their fingers together.

"Harder," Hadley gasped, eyes smarting as another bead of sweat rolled into them. Despite how Ramin panted into his neck, there was some steel left in his spine after all when he said, almost angrily, "Harder, goddamn it. You're not going to break me."

Ramin's strokes became deep, violent things, and the noise of their bodies meeting, his balls slapping against him and the bed frame creaking worryingly beneath them, the springs deafening, was as indescribable as the depth of Hadley's desire for him. His _need_. It was terrible, he knew it was terrible even as he felt it, but Rosalie may as well have been a figment of his imagination because in that moment there was no one else. There hadn't been anyone else for—for _years_ , and God, didn't he deserve the pain just a little?

" _Fuck_." Ramin's teeth found the curve of his shoulder as his hand, previously on Hadley's belly, wormed down between his body and the mattress to grasp his cock and wring a shudder from him with uneven motions.

The pace was too fast, the rhythm nonexistent, and all of it too good for Hadley to bear; his shuddering turned to outright shaking as Ramin's teeth broke his skin and Hadley rocked back and forth beneath him. Into Ramin's cock, then into his hand, mind a single droning note of white noise as he fucked himself both ways for as long as he could manage.

Truth be told, he couldn't manage it for very long: Ramin had scarcely touched him, the sting in his shoulder had barely registered, when Ramin palmed the leaking head of his cock and Hadley's second orgasm tore through him like lightning through a dead oak.

Spots danced in his eyes as he stiffened under Ramin, breath caught in his chest, cock spurting until he slumped face-first into the bed with the sort of drawn-out noise of satisfaction only a truly unapologetic reprobate could achieve. The fact that Ramin continued to pound his ass was a distant observation; everything tingled, everything ached or throbbed, everything was _too much_. It blurred together into a haze, unbroken until Ramin gripped his hips in both hands, his cock buried inside him.

"Just like that," Ramin bit out, his grip bruising as he thrust into him. "Take it just like that."

Probably spoke only for his own benefit, but where Ramin was concerned there was no comment he'd let pass unanswered. "Keep giving it to me and I will," he said, and found that he meant it.

If his words were half-muffled by the mess of duvet his face was still shoved into it made no difference to Ramin's sharp ears; he let out a soft cry of his own and clung to Hadley, straining, hips jerking as he came deep inside him. So sensitive was Hadley by this point that he figured he could feel every pulse of Ramin's cock, every twitch and jerk, and he counted seven by the time Ramin collapsed on top of him, his softening prick still inside him.

Hadley tolerated it for all of five minutes before Ramin's dead weight and their combined heat became intolerable. "Off," he said, wriggling fitfully, elbowing him, "you're smothering me."

Victory came in the form of Ramin rolling off to the side, his explosive sigh of contentment louder than Hadley's grunt as he slipped free from his ass. It occurred to Hadley that lying on the floor might've been better—the bed was hard as well as noisy, the bed frame deeply untrustworthy. But it held as Ramin shimmied closer and went through the effort of making some arrangement of their bodies to ensure greater comfort, namely Hadley's head resting upon Ramin's outstretched arm as Ramin laid on his side facing towards him, their legs once again tangled together.

It was good that Ramin was always willing to make an effort—it balanced out Hadley's frequent determinations that certain things were impossible and not to be bothered with. Like lying on his back, or asking Ramin if… if there was any chance at all he might…

"So you really didn't fly all the way over here just to see if you could take a crack at Sierra," Hadley said after a while of gazing at Ramin's peaceful face under the soft lights, the sweep of his dusky eyelashes, the unshaven line of his cheek. After they'd both caught their breath, and his voice sounded like his vocal cords had been well-scraped with gravel. Still, he succeeded in sounding amused. Shattered, but amused.

Having the day off tomorrow grew luckier by the minute.

Beside him, his exhalations puffing against the sweat finally cooling on Hadley's brow, Ramin stirred himself. "Too much risk with her. If I screwed everything up with you I could just wait a week and try again after you forgot."

Ramin was close enough that Hadley could make out every dimple, every laugh line, every one of his fine white teeth as he grinned at Hadley's exasperated— _exhausted_ —eyeroll and reluctant chuckle. "Oh, ha ha, how very droll, sir." He caught his breath as Ramin's broad hand slapped against his lower back and skated slowly over the curve of his ass. "How much of this did you rehearse?" he asked before he lost his nerve. The last nerve he had left, in all likelihood.

"Would you believe me if I said none of it?" Ramin's fingers, annoyingly steady, probed between his cheeks; turned out he had more than one nerve left after all. "I was scared shitless," he said quietly, the arm Hadley was using as a pillow flexing slightly. "I've never been able to predict what you'll do. You surprise me endlessly. I never thought…"

The air hissed between Hadley's clenched teeth as Ramin rubbed his sticky hole. It hurt—of course it hurt—but not unpleasantly, especially when Ramin pushed his finger in and twisted it from side to side. "Merciful God in heaven," Hadley said after making a noise that he would deny was a whimper.

Ramin snorted. "See? Constant surprises."

"For fuck's sake, Ramin," Hadley said, eyes falling shut as Ramin pulled his finger out only to spread his come over Hadley's twingeing muscle. There was more than enough for him to push in two fingers that time, and Hadley _did_ whimper then, lips parted as he tensed around Ramin's knuckles.

"Mmhm?" Even with his eyes shut he knew that tone, could easily picture Ramin's smug face as he pushed his fingers in deep, curled them just so, and Hadley twisted his head to press his flushed face against Ramin's strong arm as his fingers found a certain spot. A spot he rubbed with short little strokes, deliberate and lingering, where the merest expression of pressure produced a sensation in Hadley that was simultaneously unbearable and addictive.

Hadley's cock gave one last feeble twitch and he was _done_ , sagging against Ramin, utterly spent. Both of their wives could've come storming in, screaming and brandishing axes, and all he would've been capable of was lying there hoping they started their chopping at the top and worked their way down. Hell, simply _breathing_ had become significantly more difficult, not to mention seeing; Ramin was just a blurry shape as he carefully shifted Hadley to the side, kissing his temple before he eased his arm out from where Hadley had him pinned down.

Blurs were fine. He was used to them, and he was certain that this particular blur would return. Worry, at least temporarily, was beyond him—he simply didn't have the energy for it. What might happen in ten minutes' time or, worse, in ten hours' was nothing worth bothering about; the prickling pain in his shoulder, for instance, was a source of greater concern. It was possible he was a worse husband than he was a bad—

"Found your glasses," Ramin said, derailing his train of thought before it could finish leaving the station.

A rustle by his ear; Hadley gingerly rolled onto his side, groping blindly across the duvet until Ramin grabbed his hand and guided it to his glasses. "Cheers." The lenses were still, unfortunately, streaky, adding a halo around things, but even if they'd been pristine he still would've blinked hard in surprise at the sight of Ramin kneeling next to the bed, chin bolstered on his forearms and face far closer than Hadley had expected.

There was a certain fondness in Ramin's expression that was not, perhaps, unexpected. Hoped for, wished for—yes. Admittedly yes. _Resoundingly_ yes. But in hindsight it was nothing new to Hadley, nothing unrecognizable. It had been aimed in his direction for longer than he'd realized, and was resultantly… familiar. Like so many other things.

"I need another shower," Hadley said after an interval of silence, "badly." No more than twenty seconds, but that could feel like agony in the right context—or unrivalled happiness. Intentionally, willfully, with all due premeditation, he moved a hand to Ramin's face, swept his thumb over Ramin's cheekbone before he cupped his face, beard bristly though soft against his palm. "This can be a disaster after I take a shower, alright?"

Ramin snorted, turned his face into his palm. "Alright," he said, and kissed it in the same breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Almost can't believe I posted RPF, went on hiatus for 2 years, and then re-emerged just to post more RPF, but that's honestly so on brand for me.


End file.
